MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A mother is speaking to WREG for the first time since her daughter’s killing. December 23, was the last time Linda Jones said she heard her daughter’s voice.
“She told me she loved me, I don’t know, like it was a different I love you,” Jones said.
On December 24, Laneshia Bledsoe, 43, was killed at her home in Whitehaven around 3 a.m. during a carjacking, police say.
“She just was … I love all my kids and all of them were helpful in a way but she was that one,” said Linda Jones, Bledsoe’s mother. “She was so nice and so caring.”
The man responsible is still on the run almost a year later.
Bledsoe leaves behind a husband and four children.
“I know she had a camera right there at her window and it happened right there,” Jones said. “So, I just couldn’t understand why they couldn’t use none of the camera footage from that camera.”
Jones says the last Mother’s Day gift from her daughter reads, “I wish I had one hundred fives and ten dollar bills for all the times I had you five minutes late. She was always late.”
Jones says her daughter also enjoyed dancing and singing. She worked at Milano Men Wear during the time of her death. The family says they’re grateful that the owner shut down the businesses for Bledsoe’s funeral and made sure to dress all her friends and family.
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On December 27, MPD released the following photo of the suspect:
Jones says she does not know the suspect and believes MPD officers are not being helpful.
“She [the police officer] talked so bad to me. And she told me she doesn’t have to give me any information because I wasn’t her next of kin, that her husband was.”
According to Tennessee law, a decedent’s spouse and children are next of kin. Family members are next of kin when the victim is not married.
Jones says they haven’t heard anything about the case since March. She is now begging for answers.
“I really wish someone would come forward. So, I could get my baby the justice that she deserves this was just uncalled for,” Jones said.
The family is holding a balloon release at Holmes Pointe Apartments on September 18 at 5 p.m. to honor what would have been Laneshia Bledsoe’s 44th Birthday.
WREG has reached out to MPD to see if they would give us an update on the case, we are still working on a response.
According to FOIA, Memphis police homicide solved rate was 68 percent in 2022. The homicide solved rate in 2023 was 50 percent.
Recently, they have hired new detectives for the night shift to help lower that number.
Now, 12 new detectives are set to be working the night shift. This addition of officers is essential to crime reduction efforts, according to the mayor.
